UE women's basketball team may get Collins back

Coach Oties Epps received a lengthy injury report Thursday from his University of Evansville women's basketball staff.

Epps has 12 players on his roster, eight of which are dealing with some sort of ailment.

"That's just kind of where we are," the coach said.

There's a silver lining in that, however. Injured players have to return at some point.

The first could be senior Meagan Collins, who is projected to play in Saturday's 2:05 p.m. game at Southern Illinois. Collins, who averages 8.5 points, tore cartilage in her knee during an early January game and recently returned to practice.

If Collins doesn't make it back, the Aces have a mantra to fall back on. Signs on every wall of their practice gym read: "Excuse Limit 0."

"If we have enough (players) to tip the ball up with, we have enough to compete and win a ballgame," Epps said. "We've got enough, so we have to make do with what we have."

Evansville (7-13, 5-4 Missouri Valley Conference) beat Southern Illinois at the Ford Center earlier this season to start a four-game winning streak. Since then, the Aces have lost leading scorer Khristian Hart to a torn anterior cruciate ligament, and sophomore Mallory Ladd was limited in last week's game due to an ankle injury.

The Aces now enter Saturday with a three-game losing skid.

Southern Illinois (4-16, 1-8 MVC) is dealing with a different sort of adversity after coach Missy Tiber resigned in January. Under assistant and interim head coach Adrianne Harlow, the Salukis have dropped four in a row.

"Teams have a perception right now that we're Evansville, and we're an opportunity to right the ship," Epps said. "I'm certain that's how Southern's thinking, and so we've got to really be focused, go in there with a lot of energy and have a killer instinct to really get after it."